T20 Cricket World Cup is Ready to Hit United States

Cricket is one of the most popular sports on earth with large, rabid fanbases that follow their national teams religiously. Its top rivalry, India against Pakistan, is probably the most intense of any sport in the world that goes unnoticed.

However, the sport has never gained traction in the United States in spite of its worldwide appeal. And only in the past two years or so, since the pandemic, have those in the cricket world made the U.S. part of its worldwide marketing and planning of the game.

Thanks to its inclusion on the 2028 Olympic program, the sport of cricket has a four-year window unlike any other it’s ever experienced in the United States. Starting this weekend, its biggest splash in the U.S. gets a free hit.

The T20 Cricket World Cup — the championship of one-day international cricket organized by the International Cricket Council — is bringing high-level action to three regions of the U.S. starting June 1, the biggest opportunity for the sport to gain a national spotlight in the United States.

Grand Prairie, Texas, which is located 14 miles west of Dallas, will take the leap from hosting Major League Cricket matches to the big time of World Cup play. Nassau County, just outside New York City, has been building a temporary venue to host 34,000 fans for each match and Central Broward Park & Broward County Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida — one of only two dedicated cricket stadiums in the country — will also host T20 matches.

Bigger in Texas

When you think of sports in Texas, football is king. And with the success of the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars in recent years, the state has plenty to cheer for.

Grand Prairie, Texas, was the home for the Texas AirHogs of the American Association of Professional Baseball from 2008 through 2019 and the USL League Two soccer team Texas United from 2017 to 2019. But then in April 2020, the stadium lease was acquired by American Cricket Enterprises, the commercial partner of USA Cricket, which began a $20 million redevelopment.

The Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium now hosts the Texas Super Kings in the T20 league of Major League Cricket; it also serves as a home and training facility for the United States national team.

“The whole community and region started to rally around this project when the transformation started from baseball into a cricket venue,” said Sara Dedeluk, tourism manager for the city of Grand Prairie. “There’s a lot of excitement that goes along with bringing something new into the community and the fact that this stadium was going to put Grand Prairie, Texas, on an international map.”

Dedeluk says even though it was a new sport for a majority of residents, Grand Prairie Tourism found thousands of fans who wanted to support the team.

“The Super Kings’ first season was a success with sellout matches and it wasn’t just the cricket audience,” Dedeluk said. “People in the community were saying, ‘Well, I don’t know what this is about, but I’m going to buy a ticket and go check it out.’ It just brought such energy and excitement to our city.”

Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium will host four matches in the T20 Cricket World Cup group stage, including the opening match between the United States and Canada on June 1. It will also host the U.S. game against Pakistan on June 6.

But even the best laid plans can sometimes face challenges. An official warm-up match between the United States and Bangladesh was cancelled at Grand Prairie Stadium on Tuesday after a massive storm rolled through the area, knocking down a temporary video board.

Grand Prairie will be providing free watch parties for all four of the matches it’s hosting. The venue will also have watch parties for the clash between India and Pakistan on June 9 and for the T20 final on June 29.

“We have a new entertainment development — a 172-acre entertainment destination called Epic Central — and in that area we have two new hotels that are right there,” Dedeluk said. “We’ve got new restaurants and rooftop bars, Chicken and Pickle, an indoor water park and a boulder adventure park. And in the center of that space is our live music stage called Jambox. We are taking the Jambox and transforming it into the biggest watch party for cricket.”

The stadium has seating for 7,200 fans, but with hospitality suites and standing room tickets included, there could be upward of 9,000 people at each of the four games in Grand Prairie. The renovations the stadium has undergone in recent years includes refurbishment and enhancement of 13 luxury suites, installation of premium seating experiences and the renovation and reopening of the stadium’s sports bar. Other cricket amenities such as training nets, batting lanes and outside turf fields are planned to be added in the future.

“We are expecting a sold-out crowd for every match and tickets are going fast,” Dedeluk said. “Because the ticketing for the Cricket World Cup matches is based off of a lottery, we know that it’s going to be a new and fresh audience each match.”

Based off projections, Dedeluk estimates about 77% of the fans coming to Grand Prairie for the four matches are from out of state while 17% are from Texas, outside of Grand Prairie, with the remaining 6% anticipated to be Grand Prairie residents.

Visit Grand Prairie and the Grand Prairie Tourist Information Center have been fielding calls daily from people coming from all over the world. But no matter where fans come from, their money will all add up the same.

“It’s definitely going to be an economic impact on our city,” Dedeluk said. “Our hotels have benefited, our restaurants have benefited, our other attractions in the area have benefitted. Even though a lot of us still don’t understand fully how the sport of cricket is played and the rules of the game, we know that it has brought a new audience to a stadium that was sitting vacant previously.”

If You Build it, Will They Come?

While Grand Prairie, Texas, has a permanent cricket stadium to host its matches, Nassau County International Cricket Stadium is a temporary venue built on the grounds of Eisenhower Park in East Meadow on Long Island.

Following the tournament, the 34,000-seat modular stadium will be removed. The construction of the venue is being created by Populous and was overseen by T20 World Cup USA, the host committee representing matches hosted in the United States.

“Where the matches will actually take place is outside our area of the Five Burroughs,” said Tiffany Townsend, executive vice president of global communications for NYC Tourism and Conventions. “But we know that folks will still be coming through or coming from New York City, so we want to make sure that we’re engaging those travelers who are coming from New York to go to Long Island.”

In addition to hosting eight matches — the most matches of the three U.S. sites — Nassau County International Cricket Stadium will be the site for two of the most anticipated matches of the tournament. The venue will host India and Pakistan on June 9 and it will also be the site for the match between the United States and India on June 12.

New York City will boost security for the India-Pakistan match, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday, after reports of potential threats for the event.

“The anticipation is pretty high because New York is such an incredibly diverse place and it has people from every corner of the world,” Townsend said. “We have a naturally built-in fan base of New Yorkers who live here who are very excited about this, in addition to people who will travel in to see the event.”

Townsend points out because cricket is not as well-known in the U.S., there is an element of education that goes into getting people excited about what the experience is going to be like and why they would want to attend.

“We work very closely with the organizers to make sure we understand how they work and what they’re trying to achieve, and then how that flows into what we’re trying to achieve as a destination in terms of having all eyes focused on New York,” Townsend said.

A built-in advantage New York has is its cultural melting pot. All of the destinations that will host Cricket World Cup action had a “100 Days” event on February 23 that celebrated the amount of time before the June 1 opener and NYC Tourism hosted their event in Times Square, which put all eyes of the city on the T20 World Cup.

“In situations like this — a new event that may not have a foothold in New York City — that’s where we’ve helped them bring things to life and make sure that they properly engage the community,” Townsend said. “For example, Queens is such a diverse community. I think there’s more languages spoken in Queens than any other place on the planet. So there’s naturally going to be a tie between the people who live in Queens to cricket. And so we work with the organizers to make sure that those people know about the event and are buying tickets and understand all the different points of engagement.”

Townsend says while the action will be on Long Island, there are plenty of opportunities to reach the cricket fans who may not have tickets but want to be a part of the festivities. Much like when New Jersey hosts the FIFA World Cup final in 2026, New York City will still be the hub for fan rallies, watch parties and sponsor activations.

“What we find with sporting events is that oftentimes people will come to them without a ticket and they just want to be here and be part of the action surrounding the event,” Townsend said. “That’s something we’re also estimating will happen for the (FIFA) World Cup — people will just come with no expectation that they’re actually going to be able to attend, but they just want to be here. So that’s the thing that we try to capitalize on.”